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<Weston>

If the too clear water was not enough of an indication, the fact that the corpses were still so intact and with no insect activity ... they =had= in fact died from the contaminated water.

"Unless we think it is unsafe, I would rather not sleep so near these unfortunates", he said indicating the carcasses. "Even if it isn't a threat for attracting critters ... since there don't seem to be any critters left."



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Seyja


The mountain woman squatted on her haunches and inspected the lions and vultures closely but without touching them.

"These are more like plains lions," she said, as much to herself as to the others, "not mountain lions. I have more experience with the mountain cats."

Seyja made a grimace like she had a bad taste in her mouth. Taking her waterskin from her back, she took a healthy swig, swished it around in her mouth, spat it out and then took a couple of swallows before resealing the bag.

"I don't want to camp here. This place, this water is not natural."

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D

He nodded in agreement. Though who could tell from the deep shadow he stood in? "I for one would like to continue on. Not that I have a schedule that I must keep, more like I would just have this task be finished."

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Nestaron

He crouched next to Seyja and the carcasses.

"Large, powerful animals that drink a lot of water....

"The concentration of the poison might be getting stronger, yes, and it could also accumulate around the edges of pools like this."

Nestaron was a skilled and experienced healer. He checked the lions' mouths for any signs of the poison, sighing sadly.

"Very similar to plains lions. These are cave lions. Rare. A great shame."

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Tindarien

He moves forwards from behind a tree and rejoins the others, having glanced at the sky as he did so.

"The sun is high so we are only halfway through the day. A few minutes to refresh ourselves and then we should move on."

He takes some rations from his bag, eats sparingly and then takes a good drink of his water. They will need their reserves of strength for the next climb.

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GM

Using a twig, Nestaron examined the lions' mouths but saw no signs of poison. More interestingly, the cleric saw few signs of decay.

At roughly the same time, Seyja realised the carcasses were lacking that strong, fetid carrion odour.

Looking up at the sky, Tindarien was right, it was around midday and the sun drenched the area around the pool, dead lions and all. So the sun had dessicated the carcasses, but that didn't entirely explain why they were so well preserved.

Maybe the poison had preserved them? D knew many unnatural, concocted poisons that, inconveniently, also preserved the dead body.

Your high elf sorcerer was right about one other thing, however. You had a 40 foot rock climb ahead, and as easy as it looked, you had little time to dawdle and none for a quiet afternoon nap.

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Sergeant Almador

He nodded in agreement with Weston, adding, "I doubt I would rest anyway, with that climb left on my plate. Do we need ropes, pitons?"

The Sergeant was fretting mildly, and there was a good chance he'd fret more greatly once he was aloft.

"We can't stay here with ravenous beasts as they prowling the shadows!" He said, "Pff, if Irt was still here I would smack him. Beware of big pigs, says he!? What of the bloody great lions?"

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Heilbutt

He walked over to stare at the lions, fascinated by them. The creatures on Wake Island were all rather small, even the cats.

On his travels with Fuldroik he'd seen larger wildcats and pumas, but these lions were gigantic.

Obviously no-one else was as awstruck by the lions and had probably seen or learnt about such creatures before. For some reason this bothered him, and he didn't let on his callowness.

Although he wanted to, the half-orc didn't rely to Almador; it wasn't his place to. He thought everyone knew that most natural predators were scared of people and avoided them if they had a choice. Heilbutt was always amazed how many townsfolk didn't know even the simplest of things.

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Zoltan

He nods at the suggestion of moving on, eager to get to their goal quickly. The Lions were interesting. He'd heard of such, but he'd not seen Mountain Lions before having spent most of his wanderings and tracking in forests, jungle, and desert. The fact they likely died from drinking the poisoned water seemed pretty clear, and the strength of the poison was equally clear by the dead vultures.

"Curious." He ventures to the others, conversationally, as they get ready to move on. "For the Vultures to have died by eating the poisoned flesh of the Lions, it would mean the Lions had to remain alive long enough for the poison to invade their flesh and organs. Digestion and transference of the poison to their flesh and organs should have taken hours. At least two. Yet you'd likewise think that two hours after drinking the Lions would not still be at the edge of the pool but would have wandered back to their lairs."

He speaks about poisons with the certainty of someone very knowledgeable in their use.

He glances around. "This would not be their lair either. It would certainly be part of their hunting ground but large predators do not lair next to watering holes as it chases away their prey."

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<Weston>

He gave the sergeant a big smile, "Oh the fact that the lions are so well preserved suggests that even the insects, molds and the like are killed by what ever this poison is. So I think that there is little chance of an animal attack around here sergeant. "

Zoltan made an interesting point. "That seems reasonable since have not seen carcasses all along the river", he said with a slow nod as he integrated that idea in with the rest. "Could be that they just happened to be back here when they succumbed to the poison. Makes me a lot less eager to spend any time in this water", he said.

"Come sergeant, the climb should not be =too= arduous. Follow my lead and I will make sure you make it to the top", he said giving the man a reassuring wink.



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Sergeant Almador

"Well, no bad thing that they are dead." He said earnestly, "With luck, the poison has killed off all such devils along the river, and our journey will be the safer for it."

Then he tightened his belt and rolled up his sleeves, following Weston as best he could.

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Nestaron

He sat back on his haunches, thinking about what Zoltan said.

"It takes merely one minute for blood to circulate around the body, so it's not impossible but we would be dealing with a poison of terribly potency.

"If so, the vultures would've died just as quickly, but... what poison works that quickly yet leaves no physical trace, I know not."

He looked up at the paladin, gauging his opinion.

"Nothing natural, I deem."

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<Weston>

Nestaron raised an interesting question. "Could the 'effect' be magical in nature?"



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Zoltan

He shakes his head. "That may be true for injected poisons, which enter the bloodstream directly, but ingested poisons work differently, and always slower. They have to pass through the digestive system before they can be absorbed into the blood. That includes passing thru the stomach, intestines, liver, and other organs. Being absorbed into the muscle and fatty tissue takes even longer. That is where the Vultures would have picked it up, by eating those organs."

"I have heard of very rare ingested poisons that can take effect in as little as 10 or 20 minutes, but those are specifically created to be lethal poisons, and not after-effects of alchemical run-off. Two hours is more typical."

He pauses, kneeing by the corpses and looking for wounds on the well preserved flesh. The Vulture bites might obscure some, but it is possible he might see them.

Standing, he continues, "There are 4 types of poisons." He ticks them off on his fingers.

"Contact, Ingested, Inhaled, and Injected. We know that if these waters are the source of the poison that it is not contact, else our friend there", he points at Heilbutt, "would have died when he fell into the river. I see no weapon injuries on the Lions so it is not likely to be injected poison either. And if it was inhaled, we'd all be dead." He grins slightly. "So ingested it all that fits."

"Yet, from all appearances they died moments after drinking and somehow the poison from their stomachs permeated their flesh even after they were dead and their bodies no longer pumped blood or processed fluids."

He glances at Nestaron at his question, finishing with a shrug, "As I said before, curious."

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Seyja


Seyja looked from the lions to Nestaron and back to the dead felines.

"I have heard of cave lions, of course, and have even seen their spoor once or twice, but I have never seen one. They are very rare in my experience," she said, almost in awe.

She leaned forward slightly and sniffed at the carcasses, then sat back on her haunches and shook her head.

"No smell of decay."

The barbarian woman stood in one, lithe movement and wiped her hands against each other before stepping back from the pool and looking up at the climb which faced them.

"I can do it," she said after a long moment's consideration of the difficulties presented her.

"I can climb to the top, secure a rope and then let it down for the use of the rest."

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<Weston>

Clearly they didn't want to hear what he had to say. But that wasn't unusual. He would keep his thoughts to himself for now. "I think we can all do it and the delay required to have you climb", he said to Seyja, "and then drop a rope seems a needless waste of valuable time to me." And of course they could choose to ignore that as well. But he was used to that.



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D

"Magic can cause all kinds of death and misfortune. I know that there are virulent poisons that ingested or otherwise introduced can kill in minutes. Yet you seem to be missing one thing. It is entirely possible the Lions come from up there." He pointed to the top of the falls. "They might have returned to the water source and died thus being washed downstream. It is curious and something to consider. We will have to learn more."

The decision being made the little dark elf began to scramble up the rock face picking his way with knowledge of climbing clear. After all he really disliked doors.

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<Weston>

"I think I mentioned that possibility", he said with a dismissive shrug.

He led the sergeant towards the cliff. "Put your hands and feet where I put mine and you will be fine", he said with a reassuring smile.



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GM

You had time for further musings, since it was wiser to have two people 'on the wall' at a time and climb in pairs.

You weren't so pushed for time that you needed to all scale the cliff en masse like rampaging rock baboons.

Seyja and Weston were first. Almador would be an exception, following close behind Weston, mimicking his movements. The Sergeant might have thought rope and pitons appropriate, but for the rest of you they'd over-complicate an easy climb with plentiful hand and foot holds and ledges for resting.

After they were up, D and so on.

As for the lions, there weren't many ways Zoltan could make the scene fit with the poison being natural or even concocted from natural ingredients. Even the most toxic minerals needed time to wrought their mischief on the body.

Vultures were well-known for drinking and washing after feeding, they were actually quite clean birds. Perhaps this did them in, rather than eating the lion carcasses?

Or perhaps Nestaron was onto something, and the poison wasn't natural. There were substances that alchemists knew to have innate magical qualities (some schools classed them as 'arcane', or just 'weird' to the layman.)

Much like the orium ore carried by Tindarien, these had strong interactions with the magical world and as poisons, could even attack the 'silvered threads' binding life into physical form.

Or as Weston and D suggested, the picture could be so very incomplete, any conclusions would be guesswork. Although you weren't in a great position to experiment further, one thing did seem certain; the river water was noxious enough to kill an adult lion.

Were the rest of you ready to climb?

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Tindarien

He listens to the conversation regarding the lions. It strengthens his resolve to purify the water and let nature be as it should again.
Meanwhile, as he waits his turn, he studies what he can see of the route, looking for any problem areas, picking out places of ease.

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Zoltan

He simply shrugs at D's reply. There are always new things to learn and he knows there are poisons with which he is not familiar that may act atypically. Simply a piece of a puzzle.

As the others make ready to climb, he offers to bring up the rear. At some point only one of them will be on the ground below and better if it was someone well armed.

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<Weston>

He gave Almador a big smile as he gave him a final hand up. "See, that wasn't so bad."

He watched as the others made their way up.


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Nestaron

He scowled at the Sergeant's remarks about the lions. His words panged of a townsman's ignorance and were not something Nestaron abided.

But the cleric wasn't going to unsettle the fellow further and make Weston's job harder. More importantly, Sergeant Almador had showed his heart was in the right place so far, and it wasn't deplorable to be afraid of cave lions (only to the wish them dead).

So he stood and hefted his quarterstaff.

"I'm glad to have you with us, Zoltan." He said with certainty, "Between you and D, we might just have a chance of understanding and countering this poison."

That said, he began securing his clothing and belongings for the short climb.

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D

The dark elf looked about from his new vantage point. Height often offered a new perspective, and it was something to relish the success of one's own effort.

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Seyja


The climb had not been a difficult one and, other than taking the precautions normal for any climb, Seyja, being a mountain woman had no particular problem making her way to the top.

Once there, she took a brief glance around and then stood close by the edge, rope at the ready, in case any of the less experienced climbers needed assistance.

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